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On September 8, hundreds of people gathered in solidarity with individuals rising globally to continue to uplift the intersections of the climate justice movement.

The Oregon Just Transition Alliance (OJTA) supported by OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, Unite Oregon, Rural Organizing Project, PCUN, Beyond Toxics, APANO, Rogue Climate, Adelante Mujeres and many more rose up for climate justice, immigrant justice, gender justice, housing justice, transportation justice, energy justice and all the intersections within our movement. Together we showed that real solutions must come from the ground up and that true leadership puts people over profit!

With the support of more than 35 allied organizations, OJTA once again got to work with incredible community members who believe in the need for a bolder vision to address our three crisis: the ecological crisis, the economic crisis, and the crisis of empire. More than 300 people turned out at Glenhaven park to share stories, learn, and celebrate our communities resistance against climate injustice, exploitation and continued targeting and criminalization of our communities. More below:

With Rise For Climate, Jobs and Justice we showed that we will not sit and wait for governments to act. We are going to lead by example and demand that all of our institutions and governments do the same. We showed that when frontline communities lead, real solutions rise up! This gathering was unique as it centered the voices and issues of people of color, low income people, rural communities, and tribal people. Self-identified women and gender non-conforming individuals led the day’s program, and highlighted the need for a transfeminist regenerative economy. Speakers explicitly called for a transition of all sectors, led by frontline communities seeking justice. The way to stop climate change is a Just Transition to an economy that works for those the current economy leaves behind.

Elder Ed Edmo. Photo by Joel Rubinstein

The day opened with a blessing from Native Elder Ed Edmo, Shoshone-Bannock. Telling stories of how tribal communities have been first advocates of climate justice and the need to centered our indigenous communities first in any decision.

Lanija Harris, Youth Leader at UMOJA KIJANA SHUJAA spoke about the need to center the direct organizing of Black, African, youth, women, and gender nonconforming individuals in the climate justice movement and in any decision relating to our communities. “Listen to women, femmes and transgender folks. We have been leading movements from the start and we need more women and gender variant folks in positions of power, not just in theory but in practice. We need more POC women, femme, and trans folks heading organizations”.

Yanely Rivas, Leadership Development Director with Unite Oregon, spoke about how migration is natural but the extractive, exploitative economy is not. She mentioned that when migrants seek refuge from climate devastation, they are forced to migrate to nations who benefit and exasperate our climate crisis. Yanely welcomed the crowd by cheering “The people are rising!” “No more compromising!” Yanely spoke to encourage the crowd gathered to fight Measure 105, an initiative that opens the door to racial profiling and families being torn apart, simply because someone is perceived to be an undocumented immigrant. Join Oregonians United Against Profiling and rise with Yanely by pledging to vote NO!

Yanely Rivas, Unite Oregon. Photo by Joel Rubinstein

Kathy Jetñil Kijiner, a Climate Warrior, poet, and powerful woman shared a poem with the assembled crowd about the environmental impacts threatening their home Marshall Island. An excerpt from the poem is below:

Kathy Jetñil Kijiner. Photo by Joel Rubinstein

“hands reaching out

fists raising up

banners unfurling

megaphones booming

and we are

canoes blocking coal ships

we are

the radiance of solar villages”

Up next was Melva Perez, a Pacific Climate Warrior, who highlighted that “our work intertwines with many aspects that we deal with in our lives locally.” Fighting climate change comes from the fight for justice in society. “The effects that we feel in the United States like job security, immigration laws, the housing crisis, and many other injustices push us to work on climate change.” Melva mentioned their home islands are a low lying atoll, that floods during high tides. Melva ended their speech with the affirmation that youth must lead our movement! “We believe that youth will lead the charge for these changes!”

Join by the audience Reyna Lopez led us in a moment of solidarity by singing “Voices of My Great Granddaughter,”

People gonna rise like the water

We’re gonna calm this crisis down

I hear the voice of my great granddaughter,

singing ‘Keep it in the Ground’

Barbara Brown, impacted community member of the proposed Jordan Cove LNG proposal. Photo by Joel Rubinstein

Barbara Brown followed up by asking the audience to imagine the Jordan Cove Liquified Natural Gas Pipeline being proposed in Southern Oregon. “A fossil fuel project with a ninety foot wide path ripping open Southern Oregon’s farm and forest lands to lay a high pressure three foot wide pipeline filled with fracked gas across the state, ending in Coos Bay where it would be loaded onto ships bound for China.” Chanting “Shut it Down!” Barbara welcomed the audience to ask elected officials to stand up in solidarity and shut down this horrifying 229 mile monster.

“Climate justice means that we’re fighting for people in low income communities and working together,” said Violeta Mata and Say Wah Paw, young leaders with the Youth Environmental Justice Alliance. They reminded us that youth are not the leaders of tomorrow, they are the leaders of today. “We believe that a sustainable future begins with investing in youth. Climate Justice begins when we listen to youth and incorporate their voices in decision making,” Say Wah said.Youth called for real solutions that address climate and transportation injustice like #YouthPass4All- a fight of more than 22 years for youth to have access to public transportation. Violeta called on the gathering to say “no” to false solutions that move at the expense of our communities, like the electrification of buses being prioritized over youth and seniors’ access to transit. YouthPass means eliminating barriers and discrimination that prevent young people from succeeding!

The Portland Power Squad ended the day highlighting the importance of energy justice in connection to immigrant rights and the importance of taking action for initiatives like the Portland Clean Energy Initiative (26-201) which frontline communities lead.

Reyna Lopez and Adrian Cato concluded inviting everyone to join a movement of movements, a new regenerative system, one built on renewable resources! Cooperative work! Interconnectedness and sacredness! And deep democracy, in the workplace, the community, and the globe! The crowd cheered once more and joined in a moment of celebration by taking photos and listening to the music of Colectivo Son Jarocho and DJ Fannie!

The day was incredible. Oregon Just Transition Alliance couldn’t have done it without our endorsers, supporters, volunteers, donors and everyone present on this day. We thank you all for making this day special, memorable, and remarkable. This is only the beginning of Oregon’s movement for a regenerative economy. Check out the rest of photos taken by Joel Rubinstein HERE and photos taken by Justin Katigbak | Survival Media Agency HERE

What: Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice Community GatheringWho: : A movement of thousands, led by Oregon Just Transition Alliance, a statewide network of Oregon’s frontline communities.Where: Glenhaven ParkWhen: September 8th, 2018Time: 12pm-4pm
12:00pm – 1:00pm: Gather and Enjoy Food and Music
1:00pm – 2:00pm Spoken Program and moment of solidary
2:00pm-4:00pm Music, Tabling, Disperse

Map Logistics:

Bus and Transit Info:
Bus line #72 will take you close to the park. Stop at NE 82nd and Madison HS.

Parking: There will be parking at the park available. If you drive we recommend parking at the parking lot but leaving space which will be assigned for seniors, folks with disabilities and event logistics. We recommend using public transportation or coordinating carpools if need be.

We’ll be beginning and ending the community gathering at Glenhaven Park.

Reserve the front of the stage for the following folks (don’t pass these folks!):
Indigenous folks
Seniors and folks with disabilities
People of color
Youth
Impacted communities

Safety

Look for the black and yellow t-shirt folks- this are volunteers and can help direct you to the right person.

First Aid Kit- We will have first aid kits on the volunteer table. Please stay safe.

Accessibility & Facilities Info:
Self-identified disabled folks to the front of the stage. There will be an area on the side to the front of the stage with a few chairs for folks to sit down.

Gathering Accessibility
ADA accessible porta-potties
Designated area in front of the stage for self-identified disabled folks which will including seating and wheelchair space. We ask that folks who make use of this area take care to be scent-free – no strong smelling lotion or perfume, etc.
Free snacks and water will be provided at the food area which will be identified table and at community org tables at Glenhaven ParkFood:
Free snacks and water will be provided at the food area which will be identified table for the first to two hours of the event. We recommend eating lunch in advance if hot dogs and chips might not suffice.
We encourage you to bring your own reusable water bottles and clean after yourself.

What to Bring:

Most importantly, bring everyone you know! Help make this a powerful representation of our resistance in this critical moment!
Bring things that help communicate the message of frontline leadership leading the way and the intersections of climate, jobs and justice: Make your own signs and banners and t-shirts and flags – be creative! There will also be art there for you to hold. Sticks and poles are allowed — but please, no sticks with pointy ends or exposed nails/screws.
Carry signs or banners that let people know where you are from – what organization, what city or state, what country.
Music and instruments that do not need amplification are encouraged
Small backpacks and bags are allowed and should be filled with reusable water bottles and snacks! We do not recommend bringing hiking backpacks.
Reusable water bottle (we will have water filling stations at the park)
Bring some light food and drinks…it will be a long day

What NOT to Bring:

Any weapons or anything that can be construed as a weapon, including pocket knives, multi-tools, mace, scissors, etc.
Alcoholic beverages or illegal drugs are not welcome at this event. Many attendees may have substance sensitivities, and we will be in close quarters, please avoid smoking or wearing strong fragrances so that all can participate.

Day of Updates

Social Media:
Use and follow the hashtags: #RiseforClimate #OJTARises
For official social media toolkit : Find it here
On Facebook: https://bit.ly/2NY6cqg
On Twitter: https://bit.ly/2rHxbPQ
Tag @OregonJTA in your Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice facebook posts! Mention @Oregonjta on Twitter! At the end of the big day email us your photos, video, and social media posts to info@orjta.org so we can compile all the visuals from the day into one big post

Rise for Climate Jobs and Justice Chants:

Time to change the plans!
We live on stolen lands!
——
Get up! Get down!
There’s a people’s movement in this town!
——
Call: Show them what unity looks like!
Response: THIS is what unity looks like!
—-
Call: Who’s got the power?
Response: We got the power
Call: What kinda power?
Response: People Power!
—-
Ain’t no power like the power of the tenants, Cause the power of the tenants don’t stop. Say what?
—–
Inquilinos unidos. Jamás serán vencidos.
(Renters united! We’ll never be defeated!)
—-
Fight, Fight, Fight! Housing is a human right!
—-
Renters’ rights are under attack!
What do we do? Rise up, fight back!
—–
Call: Pollution and exploitation
Response: Can’t be solved by corporations!
Call: It’s poison! Get off it!
Response: It’s people versus profit!
—-
There is no stopping us!
Diesel fuel is dangerous!
—–
Fossil fuels can kill!
Smoke is toxic, pipelines spill!
Transit cops, prison gates

Do not make our city safe
——
Wars for profit, wars for oil
No more bombs on foreign soil!
——
From Portland to the Middle East
We want justice, we want peace!
Rise up, resist! The people prevail!
The whole damn system is guilty as hell!
—–
Call: All of the people say no to war
We’re fired up can’t take it no more
Re: Rise up, rise up, rise up; rise up, my people rise up!
——-
Si Se Puede!
——-
Aquí estamos y no nos vamos!
(We are here and we will not leave)
—-
Call: The people united
Response: Will never be defeated
Call: El pueblo, unido
Response: Jamas sera vencido
——
We are people! We are not illegal, NO!
—-
ONE we are the people TWO a little bit louder
THREE we want justice FOR all people!
—-
One solution – Just Transition (repeat)
—
Say yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
In the belly of the beast
Join the struggle to be free
We want justice for us all
We want our people to be free
Say yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We are voicing our demands
Rise up and take a stand
Need to fight for Mother Earth
Youth and workers hand in hand
Say yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
——

I! (repeat)
I believe! (repeat)
I believe that we! (repeat)
I believe that we will win! (repeat)
——

Voice of my Great Granddaughter:

People gonna rise like the water
Gonna calm this crisis down
I hear the voice of my great granddaughter,
singing‘ Keep it in the Ground’
—-

For a serious health emergency or fire, just call 911. Please avoid calling the police at all costs.

Help keep our event clean and safe! Recycle or reuse this sheet. This is a march for a healthy planet – please do not litter, and clean up after pets. This is a march for justice – don’t make other people clean up after you.

In less than a week, people across the globe will Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice at events in their communities. As today is Labor Day, we want to honor the countless contributions that working people make in our society and to recognize how critically important they are to a strong and successful climate movement.

Working people are directly and disproportionately affected by the threats of air and water pollution, climate change, extreme weather events, economic exploitation and harmful policies against their humanity and they are more likely to be confronted with environmental and health hazards at work—and less likely to receive adequate protection from them.

Recently, we’ve seen workers’ rights come under attack, whether it be the recent blow to public sector unions by the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, the current administration’s efforts to weaken protections for federal workers, or Trump’s rollback of essential regulations designed to protect LGBTQ workers.

That’s why it’s so important to take action next weekend and Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice. In no uncertain terms, we must stand united behind all of our working people, and demand a just transition that ensures that racial and economic justice are key to action on climate in every community.Join us on September 8th and rise with us.

Studies show that a farmworker doesn’t live past the age of 50 or 60; this is an example of the bad that the extractive economy brings to the life of a farmworker. Working in the field is extensive work and brings issues of wage theft, abuse towards women and children, pesticides, unhealthy housing, anti-immigration laws and more. Edgar shared how the #JustTransition fits in within farmworker organizing. “The economy that we are living in is very extractive not only to our earth, to all our resources, but to our bodies and our labor”.

For C2C building the new requires involving the real life experiences of farmworkers. To learn more about how C2C is utilizing People’s Movement Assemblies and Tribunals to meaningfully engage farmworkers to speak for themselves and seek the solutions that they will like to see in motion, check out the full video.

Join C2C, an organization that is striving to reclaim our humanity by redefining power in order to end settler colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy in their external and internalized forms.

After an exhaustive, prolonged search featuring candidates from across the country, we have chosen our Oregon Just Transition Alliance Organizer! Welcome Marissa Naranjo!

Marissa is a tribal citizen of Kha’p’o Owingeh, or Santa Clara Pueblo. She was raised on her reservation in the colonized land many call New Mexico, by her great-grandmother and a strong lineage of matriarchs. “I consider myself blessed for having been raised by women, especially my great-grandmother who lovingly passed down a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge, food preparation expertise, and the black-on-black pottery making process. The responsibility, perseverance, and resistance embedded in her way of being are the foundation to my passion for imagining, building, and fighting for a decolonized and balanced world.”

Marissa graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico with a degree in Native American Studies. Her work serving her community has given her a wealth of experience in organizing. Marissa calls herself “joyously dedicated” to working at the intersections of community organizing, tribal youth leadership development, and Indigenous environmental justice. “I’ve engaged with tribal members, leaders from our Pueblo and Navajo Nations, state and federal agency representatives,” she says. Marissa has fought to protect natural and cultural resources from the destructive legacies imposed by the extractive oil and gas industries, and fought to expose and address the contamination caused by historic, ongoing nuclear weapons manufacture at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Raised in a community subject to the normalization of ongoing environmental violence via contamination of sacred spring waters, clan animals, and medicinal plants by military industrialization, Marissa’s connection to our movement is rooted in her heritage. “Environmental justice for me has come to mean continuing the resistance of our historically colonized, enslaved, oppressed, marginalized, and targeted communities who envisioned a healthier world in reverence of all those who came before and all those who will come after us. When I think about environmental justice I think about my great-grandmother who taught that our environment will always keep us alive,” Marissa says.

“I could not be more excited to be working with OPAL as the new Coalition Organizer for our Oregon Just Transition Alliance!,” Marissa says. “I hope to support the development of an empowered, unified, and resilient coalition that tirelessly advocates the voices of our historically underserved and frontline communities not only be centered, but effectively lead Oregon’s just transition movement to success, as defined by our communities. I’m also excited to help train and empower community leaders that will carry this movement on for future generations.”

We did it! On the weekend of September 1st-4th frontline communities came together for the Just Transition Assembly put together by Oregon Just Transition Alliance. Check out the highlight video below.

Thank you to everyone who came together and started to envision a Just Transition with us. We continue to work in preparing a full summary of the Assembly, which will include action items and next steps on a variety of issues. We will present in the coming months our documentation of the weekend, which we intend to reveal priorities and make a big impact in the state for years to come. Stay tuned for what’s next and join us to BUILD THE NEW.

What happened last weekend at the Oregon Just Transition Assembly was absolutely mind-blowing.

Over the course of four days, more than 250 community members from across the state built power for a Just Transition. Breakout groups examined the three gglobal crises: empire, economic and ecological. Sessions on Housing Rights and Workers’ Rights, Environmental and Climate Justice and False Solutions, and Combatting White Supremacy gave participants a chance to examine the major problems facing our time. Through hours and hours of issue-specific and broad-based analysis, participants began the process of identifying the priority campaigns of the coming years.

We are working to prepare a full summary of the Assembly, which will include action items and next steps on a variety of issues. We don’t want to spoil the surprise, but the visions of frontline communities are earth-shaking. We’re talking openly about revolutionary new policies around housing, transportation, energy, food, finance, and more. But right now, the leadership and membership of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance has some internal work to do. We will present in the coming months our documentation of the weekend, which we intend to reveal priorities and make a big impact in the state for years to come.

In the mean time, prepare to be amazed, and check out media from the event. This page will be updated as new media is added.